11. Stig
Eleven
Stig
I know I’ve messed up the second Jana shuts down in the town square, the light dimming behind her honey-brown eyes. It’s like I can see tiny shutters close behind her gaze, and then she’s lost to me. Withdrawn into her thoughts, wrestling with some inner quandary as we hike back to the cabin in silence.
She doesn’t say a single word to me on the whole walk home. Hell, she barely seems to notice I’m here.
She just drifts forward, walking along the mountain trail on autopilot, while occasionally I redirect her elbow when she’s about to step wrong. Jana stiffens up whenever I touch her, and man, that kills me even more than the silence.
Should never have kissed her like that. Should never have taken such liberties. It was a peck she asked for—a polite, fake fiance peck—just enough to show affection and set the gossip mills churning in our favor.
Instead, I devoured Jana’s lips like it was my last day on Earth. Kissed her with abandon, letting some of the soul- deep longing I feel for her slip through, and now I’ve ruined everything.
Such an idiot.
The cabin door slams behind us, and I watch dry eyed as Jana toes off her hiking boots then drifts to the bathroom, still in a daze. She shuts the door quietly behind her, then a few moments later, the sound of the shower spray sputters to life and drums against the tiles.
Will she leave? What if I’ve made her feel pressured or unsafe? Where will she go if she leaves our cabin?
Gripping the door frame in one hand, I thump my head firmly against the wood three times, hoping to knock some sense through my thick skull. Then I kick off my own boots and stride into the cabin, desperate to get moving again.
One lap of the room, then two. I weave my way around the furniture, aimless without Jana in the room. So lost when I know she’s upset and I’m the cause. And I should do something, should set my hands to work even if I can’t distract my brain, but I’m useless when I know that Jana’s upset. Nothing else in the universe matters.
The sounds of the shower drift through the bathroom door: the drumming spray, the click and thump of a shampoo bottle, a faint creak as Jana shifts her weight. Coconut-scented steam seeps around the door’s edges, and after the maddening rush of those kisses in the town square, that steam is pure torture.
Christ, I want her.
And Jana Kumara is naked in that bathroom. The woman of my dreams; my ultimate fantasy made flesh. She’s bare under that shower, soft and slippery and wet, and I’m completely serious when I say that I’d trade my left arm to join her in there.
To kiss her, yeah. To fuck her, obviously. Lifting Jana against those tiles and thrusting home between those soft thighs—that would be the ultimate paradise.
But not just for those things. An embarrassingly large part of me wants to score an invite into that shower for other reasons—to soap her shoulder blades, to turn the spray cold and make her squeal, to fashion her short black hair into a little Elvis quiff. To mess around and make her laugh.
My chest aches for that stuff just as much as the need to thrust deep inside her. I rub my sternum now, still prowling uselessly around the furniture.
Normally, whenever I feel restless like this, I set out for a long, hard hike with only a few pieces of kit on my back. Might come home in a few days, or weeks, or maybe even a few months. Doesn’t matter the time of day or even the season; one thing I’ve proved to myself over the years is that I’m a survivor. Whatever I throw at myself, I can take it.
Used to be so proud of that fact. And I guess I still am, but when I feel that urge now, that itch to pack a bag and plunge out of the door into the mountains, it doesn’t feel much like bravery. It feels like running.
Have I been running all along? Fleeing from myself?
Ah, shit. Don’t want to untangle all that stuff right now.
Get out here, Jana. Put me out of my misery.
The cabin is warmer than the outdoors, but not by much, so after a few more laps I set myself to building a fire in the log burner. Don’t want Jana to be cold after her shower. The wood catches quickly and the little burner door squeaks as I push it closed.
The fire pops and crackles.
I stand up straight. Stare at the bathroom door, doleful, and rub my chest again.
Christ.
Jana Kumara has me dangling on a string, and she doesn’t even know it. She could tell me to jump, and I’d ask: how high? But even with all that, even with the fact that I fucking ache for her every minute of the day, even with the way she rules my waking thoughts and my dreams in equal measure… I’ve still messed up.
Should not have kissed her like that.
When the shower stops, my heart beats harder. The soft sounds of a towel rustling float through the door. And normally, when Jana scurries out of the bathroom with damp sticky-up hair and a towel wrapped around her body, I make sure I’m looking the other way. I avert my eyes like a gentleman and keep ‘em averted, because the last thing I want is to scare her away.
This time, I’m too slow. Too dazed and unhappy.
The bathroom door swings open.
Our eyes meet.
Jana freezes, startled, framed in the doorway by big clouds of coconut steam. Need to crack a window , a helpful but mistimed voice whispers in my brain. And she’s damp and flushed and so fucking perfect, and I can’t hide it anymore, even though that’s the smart thing to do. Even though I know I should. Can’t push these feelings down for another minute.
I stare at Jana Kumara with fierce hunger shining in my eyes.
Her lips part. Her chest rises and falls.
The fire hisses and spits.
We both move at the same split-second, charging past the furniture to slam together in the middle of the floor. The towel drops, puddling at our feet, and my open mouth is on Jana’s throat.
I’m pawing, desperate. Goosebumps ripple along her arms as my teeth scrape skin, and she’s clawing at me too, yanking at my shirt until buttons ping across the room. We’re a couple of wild animals, grappling at each other with abandon. No thoughts; pure instinct.
“Stig,” Jana hisses when I pull her head back by the hair. Her honey-brown eyes burn up at me, daring me to go further. Urging me on.
I bend down and lick her from collarbone to chin, my heart pounding. Tastes faintly of soap and salt.
Somehow, someway, my shirt hits the cabin wall. Don’t need that fire in the log burner now, not with the lava pulsing through my veins and the way we’re clawing at each other, bare skin against bare skin, desperate to get as close as we can go. Jana’s so much smaller than me, soft where I’m hard, curved where I’m straight lines, and it’s so fucking perfect it makes my teeth ache.
She jumps up and wraps her legs around my waist, nails digging into the meat of my shoulders. Though she’s a small little thing, she’s compact and curvy, and my muscles tense at the sudden weight. Yes.
“Tell me to stop,” I mutter, stumbling toward the bed. “Jana, tell me to stop and I will.”
She bites my earlobe and tugs with her teeth. The beast inside me roars in triumph, and I move faster.
The mattress springs wail as I toss Jana bouncing down on the covers, no ceremony or grace. She huffs and sits up, then reaches over to drag me onto the bed by my belt.
“Get this off.” She yanks at the leather strap, growling with frustration. Never heard Jana be so impatient, and let me tell you: it makes me harder than rock. It’s one thing being starved for her, but knowing she feels the same way? Game changer. Next level. “Get it off .”
The leather creaks and the buckle clinks as I undo my belt with shaking hands. The jeans go next, shoved down my thighs with my boxers tangled up inside, then the whole lot are kicked onto the rug.
“ Yes ,” Jana hisses, the second I crawl on top of her, naked. Her bare legs rub against mine, her chest arching up in search of contact, and fuck, I need to think about this. Need to be smart. She freaked out after a few kisses, right?
We need to slow down.
“Jana,” I say. “Maybe we should—”
Slender fingers wrap around my cock and give an experimental tug. White noise fills my suddenly empty brain, static crackling along my synapses.
We should… what?
What was I going to say? I don’t remember.
Don’t remember my own fucking name.
Because it’s her. Jana. It’s everything I’ve been craving since the night we met: her hand on me, the pad of her thumb rubbing circles over the head of my cock; her thighs squeezing my waist; her breath misting against my ear as she tugs me down to flatten her.
“Please,” she whispers. “Please.”
And that’s it, you know? The one thing I can’t refuse: Jana Kumara begging me in that throaty voice. Even if this is a huge mistake, even if I’m screwing up royally, I can’t say no to this woman. Not when she needs me and coconut scented steam laces the air.
Not when I’m dying to press inside her. To feel her wet warmth.
Not when I’m tired of running from things.
My elbow sinks into the pillow as I prop it by her head. “You ready?”
Jana nods.
I notch at her entrance, my pulse thudding in my wrists, my throat, my cock. We’re twisted together in the center of the bed, the covers rucked up around us like waves crashing on a shore. Jana’s chest heaves beneath me, and she tilts her hips up, eyelids fluttering.
“ Please , Stig.”
There it is. I’m a doomed man.
Teeth gritted, I push inside.